Family
by rose of england
Summary: The day of Norrington's promotion ceremony, Groves is reunited with someone very unexpected. One shot.


Usual discalaimers and stuff how I wish I owned PotC, but I don't etc. Actually, I don't know why I bother writing that. Anyhow, reviews appreciated.

* * *

**Family**

It hadn't always been like this, he reflected. He remembered how his father nothing short of luring him into the navy with romantic tales of the life, of how living in the navy should be. For some reason his father had been determined to have at least one son in the navy; compensation perhaps, for the fact that his father had broken his leg early on in a midshipman's commission and couldn't balance or even walk properly. He had one other brother in the navy, a Lieutenant like himself, but the third of his father's sons… well, no one had heard from him in a long while. Sadly, he remembered the day the letter arrived from England from his mother, splotches of ink stained down the page from where her tears had hit. His elder brother had run away, if that were the correct term – the society they lived in deemed a boy independent enough to join the military at the age of 12, and his brother had been 14 when he disappeared. But that was beside the point. His father had never spoken of the boy since that day, preferring to pretend he'd never had a third son.

Lieutenant Theodore Groves lifted the champagne glass to his lips and smiled wanly at the noble prattering on in front of him. The man seemed to be under the impression he was not only in the confidence of both James Norrington and Governor Swann but that he was privy to the entire inner workings of the Royal Navy. He noticed James glance over in his direction and tried, very hard, not to imagine his friend and commanding officer take a tumble off the cliff. Surely if the Governor trusted him enough to recommend the promotion to Commodore he would have been able to make the man, well, make the ceremony a little more _private_?

"…and you see, I told the man that heading a little more to the left –"

"Larboard," Theodore corrected automatically. James, he noticed out the corner of his eye, quietly disappeared from the throng with who he thought looked to be Lady Elizabeth Swann.

" - yes, yes, that's what **_I_** said…" The noble waved off his correction, to which Theodore then tuned out again. God only knew why he was being subjected to this torture. Cautiously he glanced around the gathering for Gillette, while the man in front of him rattled on oblivious to Theodore attempting to escape.

God, however, provided him with such a means in a way he never intended.

"ELIZABETH!" Theodore's head snapped in the direction of James' yell, and without even excusing himself, took off towards the Fort's battlements, forcing his glass on an attendant along the way. He reached the walls just in time to see James tearing away in the opposite direction with a squad of marines behind him andGillettefollowing.

"Dear God, what happened?" Theodore snagged Gillette's arm as he passed.

"Miss Swann, she seems to have toppled over the battlements somehow… James was all for leaping over after her."Gillette freed his arm and ran after the marines.

* * *

He was going to pay for his absence, he knew. Though there were plenty of other naval officers at the docks, so James would have no problem finding authoritorial backup, but that wasn't the reason Theodore had halted at the rampway. He didn't trust himself to get involved at this point, even if he were wrong. The man that seemed to have rescued Miss Swann… it'd been more than ten years but still, it had to be… _Jonathon. _His brother.

What in hell was he doing here? Dressed like that… their mother would have a fit if she saw this now.

"Well, well. _Jack_ Sparrow, isn't it?" James' voice carried clearly up to where Theodore stood, the contempt audible. Theodore was almost tempted to rush in there and defend his brother, but common sense won through. He'd be doing no one any good at this point, least of all the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow. How had he never noticed it before? Surely as a wanted pirate Theodore would've seen depictions of the man, heard descriptions of him.

He should return to the party. There was nothing he could do at the moment; perhaps later, he could enter the jail and free Jon later, in the night watches. That's if his brother didn't manage to free himself. Jon had always had an odd sense of survival, even if it weren't evident, especially now. And he wouldn't be too pleased to have been 'rescued' by his younger brother.

* * *

"What in hell did you think you were doing coming here, Jon?" He didn't care if Jon had changed his name in the intervening years. He was mad enough over the night's attacks.

"Theo?" His brother seemed so surprised he didn't even correct him. Jon looked Theodore up and down as if hardly believing what he saw in front of him. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm in the navy Jon. You do realise that means I _don't _stay in England? When mother wrote to say you'd disappeared I never thought I'd find you." He searched around the dingy room. "I see the jailer decided to trust the keys to the dog. **_Again_**. If those pirates haven't had him then **I** will, the drunken-"

"What are you saying? Can't you get me out?" Theodore felt he could kill Jon just for assuming he was going to free him. Damn him.

"No. You'll have to wait until tomorrow when I find the keys. I wouldn't worry about being hanged – after last night I doubt anyone will be until the scaffold's rebuilt." Jack didn't look remotely comforted by those words.

* * *

The next day, with the thought of the missing keys nagging in the back of his mind, Theodore reported for duty at the fort, and then the docks. The morning passed uneventfully until Jon inexplicably did what Theodore had half been expecting all along. He escaped, though not without the help of the blacksmith, Turner, and dumping Gillette into the bay in the process.

As James and Theodore watched the fastest ship in the Caribbean speed _away _from them, Theodore compounded James' anger and frustration.

"That's got to be the best pirate I've ever seen."


End file.
